There are many applications in which force sensors are necessary to measure how components of a system are interacting with their environment. In some instances, a force sensor is integrated into a system in order to avoid damage to the environment surrounding the system. In others, the purpose for the force sensor is to avoid damage to the component itself. In still others, the purpose is to provide sensory feedback to other parts of a system or to an observer or user of the system.
Many existing transducers that can provide such measurements are often either precise, at the expense of sensitivity, or have a large range of sensitivity at the expense of precision. Most of these transducers also require complicated and bulky circuitry to produce a useful signal. Most existing sensors, without the necessary circuitry, experience hysteresis, large settling time, high noise, and general vulnerability and inaccuracy to and in, respectively, environments outside of the laboratory setting. These sensors typically compensate for their weakness by using multiple sensors in compensating Wheatstone bridges, sophisticated mechanical configurations, using temperature compensators, and using several amplifiers. These methods reduce the aforementioned stated problems, at a certain expense and complexity. However, these problems will still persist in the sensor, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent.